Guiding Personas for Continuous Science
Understanding the needs, challenges, and motivations of six key groups shaping scientific communication and collaboration.
Contents
Institutions
Institutions, including universities and research centers, are keen for researchers to publish and disseminate their work effectively. They want to understand the volume and quality of output along with ways to reproduce work easily. The level of support offered to researchers varies by institution.
🧍🏻Profile
- Host numerous researchers, research projects, and initiatives
- Facilitate collaboration between researchers and departments
- Promote the dissemination of knowledge within and beyond the institution
🎯 Goals
- Support researchers in achieving success, often through encouraging publications
- Leverage research accomplishments for brand use/boost
- Increase the visibility and impact of institutional research
- Foster a culture of innovation and knowledge sharing
😞 Frustrations
- Diverse feelings of ownership of research dissemination (Universities have low ownership vs Research Institutes have high ownership)
- Challenges in maintaining research and publishing tools/processes
- Lack of interactive elements in current
- publishing platforms limits dissemination of research
- Need for comprehensive solutions that support diverse research needs
- Difficulty in tracking the impact of institutional research
💚 Preferences
- Integrated platforms that cater to various research disciplines
- Solutions that are adaptable to institutional workflows
- Tools that support collaboration and resource sharing
- Values-aligned partners and providers
💭 Behavioral Considerations
- Often led by committees or governance structures
- Collaborative and supportive of research advancements
- Seek to align technological solutions with institutional goals
📍 Where to Find
- Higher education consortia and conferences
- Academic networks and institutional partnerships
- Open Access funding groups
Bringing the Persona to Life¶
Institutions, including universities and research centers, are keen for researchers to publish and disseminate their work effectively. They want to understand the volume and quality of output along with ways to reproduce work easily. The level of support offered to researchers varies by institution.
🪪 Martha
- Age: 57
- Vice Chancellor, Research
- Married to a lawyer, 13-yr old teen
- Her career progression: Biology PhD - Researcher - Department Chair - Dean - to current role
⁉️ Why
- Dedicated to a belief that science is the pathway to a better society - a deeply held value that this is the way to make positive change in the world
- Cares about junior researchers and creating more ladders that come down to have more pathways up
🙏 Needs
- Chairs a lot of committees and boards - needs others to show up and meet her level of dedication
- Predictable environment to make plans
- Measure progress to prove the impact of the work
- Empower researchers around the university
- Levers to inspire change and bring people at the university along on the movement (would prefer carrots but willing to use sticks if need be)
